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Joumana Kayrouz is the T.J. Eckleberg of Detroit. For a couple of years now, her face has dominated every third billboard across the metro area, advertising her services as a personal-injury lawyer. This seems to be what she looks like more or less au naturel:

She has an arresting appearance, with white-blonde hair, lashes and brows. This was her first billboard image:

Lately a new billboard is replacing it. Through the miracle of technology, she’s grown a giant pair of lips:

I crossed the street behind this bus yesterday, and up close, you can see how crappy the Photoshopping was; they didn’t even try to match her actual lips:

I hope she’s a better lawyer than her art director was a Photoshop artist.

And that is your Friday eye candy (if you like wax lips). But it starts us off on a thematic foot, as our first bit of bloggage today involves the subject of how women look. I realize calling Rush Limbaugh a vile sack of pus is like calling the ocean wet, but Laura Lippman posted this today, and it left me wondering, for the thousandth time, where the bottom of this man’s loathsomeness really is. By WashPost blogger Melinda Henneberger, she notes her (extremely mild) reaction to the Time magazine breastfeeding cover, and Limbaugh’s reaction to it. Ahem:

“See, TIME Magazine blew it,’’ Limbaugh explained. “You know why it’s not working with the feminist women? Because the woman on the cover of TIME Magazine was too pretty. I call your attention once again to Undeniable Truth of Life Number 24. Dare I speak it again? Brian’s nodding his head yes. Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream. Here is Melinda Henneberger, who’s somewhat trying to be funny here, but in all comedy, there is a grain of truth, and she’s quite upset.

Finally, Donna Summer is dead, and I won’t apologize for enjoying her music. Disco had its day, it came and went, and sorry, but the Bee Gees were only the worst part of it. Summer wasn’t the best, but she was pretty good. I could never bring myself to hate disco. It was pop dance music, and a huge relief from the self-important blowhard rock’n’roll of the time. (All we are is dust in the wind, right?) And then punk came along and was a huge relief from disco. It all passes away, eventually. Right, D?

Rush is much, much more than a simple 100 gallon drum of fecally contaminated meat. He’s the voice of all the bathroom goblins, mucophages and frotteurs yearning to breathe on you.
In a well ordered world, they’d be ragpickers, or living agar for sepsis, but Rush has led them out of the pissoirs and onto the sidewalks. He’s been a real leg up for creatures historically beyond the most cursory human sympathy.
A loogie messiah, if you will.

Two of my seven college years were paid for by DJ’ing at a disco roller rink (it was a step up from dish room in the dorm cafeteria, OK?). We played the whole Summer canon during 1980-82, but my main association with her was that, more often than not, she’d get boo’ed, because normally around 9 pm, 11 pm weekends, all of us working the booth would start that lovely, slow, almost recitative opening of “Last Dance,” and it was . . . so she got boo’ed a lot. Then the couples would stream out onto the floor for one last circuit or two, one last attempt to skate backwards by the guys, one last trip and collapse to the floor (often intentional for a last grope, often a bit accidental if you allow for inebriation), but mainly lots of couples under the mirrorball slow dancing in place on their skates, trying hard not to fall down.

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alex said on May 18, 2012 at 7:13 am

Hooray for Henneberger. I don’t think anyone has ever managed to make that cursed tub of lard look smaller. Too bad more conservatives don’t tell him to put a cork in it and quit delegitimizing their cause.

The lipo-lipped photo flub doesn’t look any more grotesque than what a lot of women are doing to themselves anyway. They used to do it with paint and it looked sort of clownish, especially when they started drawing thick black lip lines outside the border and painted the insides with transparent pink glosses. There’s a local drag queen who, so like Fort Wayne, is about ten years behind the times in terms of her fashion sense and that’s her taste in makeup. People snidely refer to her as “Hitler” behind her back because of the prominent black line between her nose and upper lip.

Are you sure that blonde ambulance chaser didn’t have her cellulite sucked out of her ass and injected into her maw? It’s all the rage these days I hear.

Whether he knows it or not, that fucker’s gonna die someday. I’ve cut and pasted his obit in case he outlives me. Rush Limbaugh, light of the lame, lapping the loo. Your soma, your sap. Rush Lim-baugh: the knot of the uvula dropping a tawny ladder of sputum two centimeters to the root of the tongue to drip at three through the teeth.
She was Rush, plain Rush in the morning, standing nineteen stone in her PVC unitard. She was Rusty in pants. She was pantsed at school. She was a trombone in the Dominican Republic. But on the radio, she was their bleeding Christ.

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Jolene said on May 18, 2012 at 8:04 am

Very interesting profile of Joe Ricketts, who claims he was wronged by the NYT article we talked about yesterday. This AM, his next-in-command has been on TV saying that their entire electoral focus is on fiscal responsibility, that they want nothing to do w/ ad campaigns based on Rev. Wright.

Donna Summer gets respect from me, but I ran across a passage in a story about the Ramones the other day that amazed me. I can’t recall it entirely accurately, but the gist was this: The week the Ramones released their first album, five of the top 10 songs on the Billboard charts were performed with by the Bee Gees or one of its members, and the other five were lame crap like “Sometimes When We Touch.”

When it’s time for something, it’s time. And when it’s over, it’s really over.

I was wondering when we would get around to talking about that Time magazine cover. Those it seems to be more Limbaugh’s outrage over the cover than the cover itself. Limbaugh is an outrage-monger. There’s no limit to how far he’ll go because if he doesn’t deliver on the out-rage his audience will find somebody who does. The Sandra Fluke incident was different then most because it was outrage against a very specific person. If he had railed against “feminists” having too much sex that they can hardly walk, it would have been business as usual. But he went personal and that became the story. There’s a lot wrong with this cover. Mostly in that when someone can stand up on a box to breast-feed they’re no longer an infant. And the relationship between the two seems more sexual than maternal. Time, like magazines, wanted a cover that grabbed people’s attention and get them to buy the magazine but I think they slipped from being striking to being tasteless.

edit: I’ve always respected Donna Summers because the songs I remember her singing were all good songs, disco or not. The BeeGees were always kind of disturbing because no man should be able to sing in that high of a pitch. There’s nothing wrong with dance music (not that I never danced) so to an extent I never understood why disco was so hated. It’s like the bubblegum music before it. Some of it was fun, bouncy songs that you can’t get out of your head and some of it was just crap.

I’m kind of amazed you would guess she’s in her 50’s, beb. She was in Barefoot in the Park in 1967 – and she was 30 when the movie was released.

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Deggjr said on May 18, 2012 at 8:57 am

David Frum perfectly described Rush Limbaugh when contrasting him to President Obama:

“On the one side, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. This president invokes the language of “responsibility,” and in his own life seems to epitomize that ideal: He is physically honed and disciplined, his worst vice an occasional cigarette. He is at the same time an apparently devoted husband and father. Unsurprisingly, women voters trust and admire him.

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as “losers.” With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence—exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we’re cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush’s every rancorous word—we’ll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.”

Coozledad, I have every hope and expectation that you will outlive El Rushbo; his continued popularity is the best justification for your mordant assumptions about the bulk of our fellow voters, and proof that Mencken was right. Which makes me sad.

On lifespans, though, there’s a Facebook meme about with a picture of Keith Richards, and a caption listing the celebrities that he’s outlived (Davy Jones, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and now Donna Summer) and the bottom line “Bet you didn’t see that coming.”

(The Tom & Lorenzo post on Jane, if you scroll on down, will have you thinking of “Brazil”: I guarantee it.)

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Suzanne said on May 18, 2012 at 9:32 am

Linda @1. Way to start the comment stream!

Interesting that Rush took on the breastfeeding cover of Time. The only people I’ve ever known who breastfed their kids until they were walking and talking and toilet trained were extremely conservative “hair” church kind of people who would no doubt listen to Rush and hang on his every word. My rule was that if the kid can ask for it, it is time to move on to the sippy cup.

The music world lost another great, for those of us classical music followers: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, German baritone known for his lieder singing. Wonderful voice!

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brian stouder said on May 18, 2012 at 10:00 am

Melinda Henneberger is beautiful, whereas the real photo of the billboard lawyer is so neutral and plain that she looks like a mall mannequin.

But I will say that the thing that drew my eyes on her photo-shopped bus billboard was her large watch. That seems to be “the go” anymore – large watches for women – and I do like it. (It makes her look dependable; like whatever else happens, she’ll be on time)

When Tub O’ Rush says “You know what I mean.”, he is generally saying he has no idea what he’s talking about and even less clue how to explain himself without descending into mindless, meaningless blather. Whenever that jiggly mound of turds starts in on women and their appearance, I always feminist matriarch Gloria Steinem:

Excuse me if that seems hateful, but the fatass salamander should respect his betters, particularly when they could likely kick his obese ass.

I believe David Frum, in describing Rush, has accurately pegged the GOP, while only implying, not specifying, the rank know-nothingness and willful ignorance, and the savagery that characterizes that bunch.

Keef’s secret is those 100% blood transfusions that preserve his liver from filtering the toxins from his circulatory system, and get him past customs. But his lungs must look like tanning bed lady’s face.

Jolene@6: The Ricketts plan for Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama talked specifically about including Rev. Wright “as John McCain would not allow”. That’s pretty difficult to explain away after the fact. And since it’s now in the open, doesn’t that make institutionalized LDS racism and past polygamy fair game? Lying for the Lord? Magic U-trou? Joe Smith’s proclivity for murder? Sons of Dan? And what does the spelled-out middle name have to do with fiscal responsibility. Of course what does RMoney have to do with fiscal responsibility.

The lawyer’s unadorned photo? First thought, Johnny Winter in women’s clothing. Second thought on Ms. Kayrouz? Who the hell chooses a lawyer from a bus ad? I know A Able Attorney is intended to be the first name the desperate DUI detainee sees in the phone book. But bus billboards? I am not impressed.

The chief problem with disco was homogenization, one song indistinguishable from the next. And of course, the instrumentation was programmed electronics, canneed drumbeats and bass lines that were interchangeable. Three good disco songs: Miss You, by the Stones, Shakin’ Street, by the Dead, and Take Me I’m Yours, by Squeeze.

I recall an interview once where the BeeGees said that they were not a disco band and the movie Saturday Night Fever typecast them as that, effectively ending their music career.

On the news yesterday a reporter pointed out that many of the venues Donna Summers played in were so smokey that she inhaled more of her fill of second-hand smoke than the average person.

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basset said on May 18, 2012 at 10:37 am

Might surprise y’all that Donna Summer lived, or at least had a house and spent a lot of time, in suburban Nashville for her last seventeen years. USA Today article with old quotes from the local Gannett outpost:

Our billboard equivalent here is the owner of a bail-bonding company who styles herself “The Bond Girl.” That, and the Spanish-language one for “El Bronco,” insurance man extraordinaire.

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Bitter Scribe said on May 18, 2012 at 10:38 am

That last photo made me think of the old Magikist billboards. Chicago-area readers will know what I mean.

Apparently Rahm Emanuel is so furious with the Ricketts family over that Rev. Wright ad stuff that he’s throwing a monkey wrench into plans to use tax money to renovate Wrigley Field. This is extremely righteous because 1) a broke city and/or state should not be paying to fix up a ballpark and 2) it’s great to see an arrogant rich fuckwad learn that his money won’t let him do absolutely anything and everything he wants.

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nancy said on May 18, 2012 at 10:42 am

Icarus, I just did a spit-take.

Disco ended the Bee Gees’ career? It gave them one, and made them, collectively, richer than 10 Croesuses. “Saturday Night Fever” (the record) was No. 1 for almost six weeks, and on the charts for two years.

They’re right that they weren’t disco before “Saturday Night Fever,” but if you think “I Gotta Get a Message to You” and “Words” were high art, well. They’d be closing the pubs on the Isle of Man if it hadn’t been for John Travolta and that paint can.

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Kim said on May 18, 2012 at 10:48 am

Melinda Henneberger does the classiest bitch-slap ever – way, way down in her reply to Rush and his sychophantic crew:

On one of the conservative blogs that picked up and cheered on Rush’s thoughts on my appearance, commenters joined in the fun by speculating that I probably have ugly breasts and so cringe at the sight of a beautiful woman nursing. Actually, they are wrong about that; I have no breasts, after cancer in 2002 and 2003. But beauty comes in many forms, and I am so glad to be alive that I thank God for my scars.

When I saw that cover I thought of one I did when my firstborn was a newborn. Not nearly as graphic (hey, the kid couldn’t hold his head up, let alone have any posture) it freaked the hell out of people. BobNG surely remembers.

The thing about breastfeeding, though, is it’s not easy, especially when you work. Tribune suggested I use an unoccupied bathroom stall to pump when I went back. Nice and sanitary, right?

Women have always been more accomplished than men at making other women feel guilty about those choices – work, don’t work; breastfeed till they can stand up to take a nip, quit when maternity leave is up; have kids, don’t have kids. The Time headline did it again, so I pay it no mind.

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alex said on May 18, 2012 at 11:06 am

(The Tom & Lorenzo post on Jane, if you scroll on down, will have you thinking of “Brazil”: I guarantee it.)

Oh boy, the Ricketts. As a Sox fan, I must say they’re making Jerry Reinsdorf look good, and that’s no small accomplishment.

It’s just another case study for my rant that far too many people have no sense of shame. We have to dump that evil socializing Obama because of all his handouts, right after I get $150 mill to fix up my ballpark.

And Ms. Henneberger? Well, as they would say at the jobsite, she’s easy on the eyes. Of course, I’m thinking Rush’s taste in women is pretty close to Newt’s.

And that momma’s boy on the cover of Time? I’m laying money right now that he’ll be a future guest on Dr. Phil.

The Bee Gees’ next big commercial effort after disco was that abominable Robert Stigwood butchery of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Of course, if you count cameos, half the pop and rock music world of that time took part in the train wreck:

Scribe @19: If Rahm Emanuel gets involved, GOPers will be howling about “Chicago Politics” in typically clueless fashion, oblivious to the inevitability that somebody will ask them about the efficacy of spending public money for the benefit of a private business, and how that fits with their fiscal responsibility mantra.

I have never seen Saturday Night Fever, and don’t really have any intention of correcting that lacuna in my American film experience. Never seen Grease, either. Or the Levi Stubbs version of Little Shop of Horrors. Musicals I do like: Absolute Beginners, Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, West Side Story.

The brothers Gibb, to their credit, did write the excellent song “To Love Somebody”, which was covered by both Janis Joplin and Nina Simone:

One thing my dearest beloved and I will always part company on is the Brothers Gibb and his love for them. Of course they and Donna Summer tried to distance themselves from disco; they wanted to show they were true musicians.

While disco was reigning I was listening to stuff like this, from another artist we lost today, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. I present you with Der Erlkönig, the tragic story of a father and his young boy, penned by Goethe and brilliantly brought to life by Schubert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9t5VCPD8UQ. My father! My father! He’s grabbing me now!

Great take-down by Melinda Henneberger. She gets the hero of the day award.

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brian stouder said on May 18, 2012 at 11:38 am

And why? – why do lawyers put their pictures on the side of buses?

Because, you never know when the fickle finger of fate (as Dick Martin would say) may suddenly point at YOU, and then, at that moment, you may think “I’m callin’ that ambulance chaser!”

So before the lunch hour, a Jackson, Michigan story, about a kiddo who went to Arby’s with his mom, and who is no longer “thinkin’ Arby’s”:

The injured employee was treated at a hospital. Gray said the franchise has fully cooperated with health officials and was given the approval to remain open.
Ryan’s mother, Jamie Vail, was incredulous. She and her friend, Joe Wheaton, had taken Ryan and his 11-year-old brother to the Arby’s drive-thru and she told the Citizen Patriot she thought her son was joking when he exclaimed he had found a piece of a finger in his sandwich. “Somebody loses a finger, and you keep sending food out the window? I can’t believe that,” said Vail. She and Wheaton said the severed section was about an eighth to a quarter-inch thick and at least one inch long. Vail said she called 911 and met police at a local health center, where her son’s blood was drawn and he was prescribed some medication.

(and now we await a palate cleanser)

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adrianne said on May 18, 2012 at 11:48 am

Donna Summer provided a good deal of the soundtrack to my teen years, spent at venues like “The Bump Shop” and “Trouble” – discos that didn’t serve liquor, so me and my polyester-clad pals could boogy the night away.

I’m sorry to hear of her death. A classy lady with a great set of pipes.

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LAMary said on May 18, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Julie, small world. I got into Dietrich Fischer Dieskau in the late seventies, but my fave was Die Schoene Mullern (sp?). This winter NPR did a series called Winter Songs one Bill T. Jones, the choreographer, chose Winterreise and told a haunting story about seeing his father from his elementary classroom window, walking in the cold wind. He said one of the Winterreise songs reminded him of that image. I think you can still listen to the story, music and interview here:

And Fux News has no compunctions about using Hanoi Jane’s photo for tittillation purposes.

We used to know a family that breastfed three and four year old siblings. The children, when thirsty, would say “Sucky, sucky mommie.” Fairly repulsive, and mommie would flop that udder out.

The fascinating thing to me about the Time cover is that the cover itself has dominated to the point that the cult-seeming bidness of so-called “attachment parenting” has been ignored in the discussion. I gave up on Time a long time ago, when they darkened Willie Horton’s skin on the cover.

And how many living sperm has Limbaugh put to death with that Time cover in his other hand? Bury the lardo under pressure and then tap his ass for natural gas in a few years. Justify his creepy existence. And no, that is not hatred, that is pure loathing, like what I feel about ticks and leeches and tapeworms.

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Peter said on May 18, 2012 at 12:16 pm

Brian, get Rahm Emanuel on the phone – that missing digit might be his!

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nancy said on May 18, 2012 at 12:16 pm

The lawyers who advertise around here all have more money than God. It might not be how you’d choose a lawyer, but someone must be doing it. One of my students last term got a job as nanny for one of them, and said she was told she’d be spending three weeks in the Caribbean at the family compound. They got there on the family plane. And so on.

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LAMary said on May 18, 2012 at 12:17 pm

In the days before digital cameras I used to take my rolls of film to a place in the local mall. They had a wall where customers could tack up interesting photos, and there was one from about 1993 of Jane Fonda at some local event. It wasn’t professionally lit or photoshopped or posed and she looked every bit her age and seriously augmented, lifted and injected.

In Savannah, GA, two lawyers surnamed Barr and Dove got married to each other. They advertise on the busstop benches as the Dove-Barr firm. Oy.

The only thing really wrong with plastic surgery, if you can afford it and are not obsessive about it, is not doing homework on the surgeon ending up with Michelle pfeiffer trout lips.

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Julie Robinson said on May 18, 2012 at 12:55 pm

Those early Bee Gee teeth are scary.

Mary, thanks for the link, I missed that story. I’ll forever be grateful to the music teachers in high school who helped me explore beyond the bubblegum pop on WLS. Though my parents played classical at home, I needed an outside influence and both the choir teacher and the band teacher, who also taught me theory, changed my approach to music and life.

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alex said on May 18, 2012 at 12:56 pm

I worshipped Donna Summer. This hit of hers wasn’t particularly a favorite, however, until I started substituting the words “recreational drugs” for “unconditional love” and it became sort of an inside joke among my friends from those days.

Why all the hate for the BeeGees? I liked them, though not anywhere near as much as Donna Summer. Never bought one of their records. Their demise wasn’t disco but rather sounding formulaic and being overplayed. Same thing happened to Lionel Richie and all sorts of acts other acts from that era who were discouraged by their labels from taking risks and were told to imitate what had already proven commercially successful.

Disco sucks. I picked up that mantra the first time I heard it. Long Live Rock and Roll, my crew said.
Not living in Metro D, I have never heard of JK the albino barrister.
If I get hit by a car, my last words before I pass out from my adrenaline rush will be “CALL SAM!” 1-800-CALL SAM.http://www.callsam.com/
I have been seeing these ads on Detroit sports networks forever.
“My settlement was one point five million dollars and I owe it all to the Bernstein Advantage.”

Alex @36: That song is closer to reggae or calypso than to disco. I don’t think I ever heard it, catchy.

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Dan B said on May 18, 2012 at 1:39 pm

I’m guessing the thinking on the lawyer advertising is this: you’re involved in an accident or something else that caused an injury. So you know you need a lawyer, but you open up the yellow pages (or start googling, these days) and you’re faced with a huge list of people’s names. How do you choose? You look for something familiar, something you’ve heard of. That one you’ve seen all over the place.

My personal favorite lawyer ad in Chicago these days is a firm that specializes in bicycle injury cases. It advertises in the Reader, with a serious hipster-ad (including a nineteenth-century engraving of a guy on a bicycle). They know their target market.

As long as I’m talking nostalgia: my mother is a big fan of the Magic Flute, and our recording of it featured Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Papageno.

And, Bitter Scribe, I have childhood memories of being stuck in traffic jams by the old light-up Magikist sign by the Kennedy. I now drive past that spot on my way to work regularly; that Wrigley’s sign just isn’t the same.

The Anti-disco. Although disco did produce extended mixes, long rock songs were its polar opposite. I’m sure many would think it ridiculous, but I listen to Time Has Come Today still. Incredibly powerful vocal and terrific guitar, and I still love the lyrics. Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys by Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi, with the hangers-on in Traffic.

The Magic Flute, is late 18th century rock music written by the bad boy rockstar of the Classics. “Too many notes.”

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maryinIN said on May 18, 2012 at 3:03 pm

I think Melissa Henneberger has a famous mother of a liberal persuasion, but I was unable to quickly find out if I am correct. I usually like to listen to her (commentator on MSNBC). But, as I recall, she was a little frantic about the Obama-birthcontrol-Catholic bishops thing (on the bishops’ side, ahem, while discussing with Chris Matthews). Still, it was probably Day 1 of the brouhaha and maybe she hadn’t had enough time to think it through. Or maybe she had.

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Jolene said on May 18, 2012 at 3:07 pm

I don’t think Henneberger was exactly on the bishops’ side so much as that she thought the Obama administration had handled the situation clumsily, failing to support its allies–particularly the leaders of the Catholic Hospital Association, who had supported health care reform, dragging the bishops along with them.

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brian stouder said on May 18, 2012 at 3:47 pm

So, Fort Wayne has now had it’s 4th separate shooting in less than 24 hours (including one police-action shooting, which may or may not be related), and it begins to look like a major irregular war is proceeding.

The combat seems to always involve multiple people in cars.

Do they drive into ambushes? If they do, after the first (or second ) major shooting, one would think that these sorts of cars full of people could not be taken by surprise… so this makes me think there is no surprise; rather, this is tactical modern-day urban warfare.

A detail one (eventually) sees in accounts of these clashes is the astounding number of shots that get fired in these less-than-one-minute firefights – 50 or 60 shots seems to be the number one hears, when the police do an after-action estimate.

And these are occurring in Fort Wayne’s close-packed, residential housing areas, where lots of children live and play.

That is horrible Brian. Apparently some of those gun owners opted for the E-Z automatic conversion kits guaranteed ’em by the NRA and Scalia’s gross misreading of the 2nd Amendment.

You’d think if he had viable political instincts at all, RMoney would say something Mitt-igating about Limbo’s disgusting fulminations, like telling Flush to STFU, and apologize for the Party Kommissariat. When it comes to shit like this Mitt is gormless and spineless, an invertebrate slug, no kind of man. No cojones at all. A craven coward.

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Jolene said on May 18, 2012 at 4:48 pm

Warren Buffett still has faith in newspapers–or, at least, thinks there’s money to be made in news outlets in small markets.

That Eric Zorn piece on the Magikist lips shows me that I hadn’t remembered where they were. I had them placed quite a bit further south than they actually were (which would explain why there isn’t a big grocery store visible when I pass by where I thought they were). It would also explain why I remember big traffic jams there, since Montrose is where two expressways either split or merge.

It’s also a reminder of one of Chicago’s quirks-it’s the only city I’ve ever spent time in where people routinely refer to the major expressways by a nickname, not by a number. I went from there (where you talk about “the Kennedy” or “the Dan Ryan”) to San Diego, where I very quickly picked up the Southern California “the 5” or “the 163.” It always startles me when people find that weird. I remember a not-very-good columnist in the Indianapolis Star trying to do a “Who’s on First” routine based on a trip to Chicago and the distinction between interstates 94 and 294 and finding it really baffling. I’m sure it wasn’t actually funny to anybody, but it was particularly strained to me, who would call them either “the 94” and “the 294” or “the Dan Ryan” (yeah, technically, it’s the Bishop Ford at that point) and “the Tristate.”

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Angela said on May 18, 2012 at 5:46 pm

I’ve thought if I could create one phrase-tripped filter on my Interwebs that would never let me read/see/think about another person again, it’d be “Rush Limbaugh.” But I would’ve missed Coozledad’s comment, and that would’ve been a cryin’ shame.

DanB: When I was a kid in Detroit, nobody ever called the thru-Detroit portion of I-75 anything but “the Lodge”, as in John C. In Boston, nobody ever called the miserable spate of I-95 from the South End to the South Shore anything but the Southeast Expressway, or, more typically, the Distressway. Of course, as Jonathon Richmond & the Modern Lovers informed the world, the suburban ring around the city was always 128. Many cute nicknames were tried, but wilted in the blinding light of J. Richman’s brilliance Of course, I-90 has always and will always be the Pike. Private Lightning, a great band nobody ever heard of, wrote a superb song about driving in Massachusetts, but it takes a homie to get that they are talking about driving on the Pike, from a reference to Leicester. NYC has names for the Xways, like the Cross Bronx, the most frightening stretch of road in America.

May-retta, GA has the Big Chicken, a roadside attraction similar to the lips, which is the basis for a majority of driving directions in the northern wilds of Hot-lanta. The Chicken has survived tornadoes and many civic assaults (it is distinctly an eyesore) but stands tall to this day, and Atlantans still tell people Go left when you see the Big Chicken. Redneck Heaven. To my taste and to my eye, the supreme civic landmark of this sort is clearly the Citgo Sign that lights Kenmore Square, Fenway Park, the Mass Pike, the Mass Ave. bridge, the marathon finish line, and is a beacon visible to Cambridge, across the Charles.

I’d like to see Rush on the business end of a Mitt Merridew mob. Kill the pig, slit his throat, bash him in.

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Joe Kobiela said on May 18, 2012 at 6:46 pm

You know I know most if not all on this board don’t like Rush, but if you take a moment and look at the things you say, to me.your no
better than him, saying hateful vulgar things wise up and ignore it
Pilot Joe

I’m just making a Lord of the Flies reference Joe, in honor of the Mittster. And no matter what anybody says, Rush, not Reince Priebus, is the head of the GOP.

People seem always to take Dr. Eckleberg’s sign as some beneficent observer in that symbol-sated novel. I thought immediately he was a malevolent presence brooding over West Egg, and I think I’m proved correct when Wilson says God sees everything befor the shooting starts.

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Deborah said on May 18, 2012 at 9:13 pm

Today in the loop area of Chicago there actually was some NATO protest activity. Cops were in riot gear on Michigan and Madison when I walked home for lunch. I met a friend on State and Washington after lunch and there were paddy wagons sirens blaring nearby. Then we saw protesters marching but all very non-violent, very tame. I left work about a half hour early this evening and no activity was visible at all. I stopped at the bank to get some cash at the ATM and ther was a sign that it was temporarily closed but you could still access the ATM. Some woman was on her cell super upset that she couldn’t access the bank even though it was within the banking hours and she needed to make a payment to keep from getting charged a penalty and didn’t have a clue why the bank might be closed. The woman ahead of me at the ATM line informed me that she worked for the bank but didn’t want to tell the woman who was irate on the phone that the reason the banks were closed was because they were being inundated by protestors and had let all of the employees go home to make sure nothing happened to them. Which I must say seemed sensible.

I will miss the whole affair, because tomorrow we are headed to New Mexico for a week. We will be looking for an apartment for Little Bird in Santa Fe to be the headquarters for the next chapter in our lives as we start the construction on our land in Abiquiu. I will have access to Internet, so hope to stay in touch.

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Deborah said on May 18, 2012 at 9:31 pm

There is one thing that I haven’t been able to figure out how to do while editing comments and that is how to scroll inside the editing comments box on my iPad without scrolling the whole site. When I have a longish comment and I want to edit a part of it I have a problem scrolling to what I want to edit. Does anyone else know what I mean by this? Or am I just lame not to be able to understand this? There’s probably a really easy answer to this.

I don’t have an iPad, Deborah, but if it works anything like the touchpads for regular Macs, the fix should be easy. Before attempting the scroll gesture, position the cursor within the text box you’re wanting to scroll (or outside, if you’re wanting to scroll the page) and single tap. Then scroll.

As I say, I don’t know from direct experience if that’ll help, but perhaps it might?

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Crazycatlady said on May 18, 2012 at 10:41 pm

People in the Detroit area call Geoffrey Feiger an asshole. Yes, Jack Kevorkian’s lawyer is a jerk sometimes. But if I were in trouble, he’s the jerk I want to defend me.

DanB, I remember how I had to take a minute to figure out what exactly the “Inner Drive” was. It was pretty easy to figure out that “The Outer Drive” was the name Chicagoans were giving LSD in 1968, which was the first year I drove around in Chicago. My brother has been living in Chicagoland since 1966 and he wasn’t able to explain in detail what the “Inner Drive” is.
Of course just north of Montrose, I-94 branches north off the Kennedy and becomes the Edens Expressway. It was told to me that this is the “Inner Drive”.
I guess that is bullshit, right? It’s hard to figure anything out about this, but it appears that the “Inner Drive” is the street just west of the proper Lake Shore Drive.
My sister-in-law has been living in Charleston, SC since 1979. All the locals there call I-26 simply “The I” . This is because I-26 is the only interstate . The only one.

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Brandon said on May 19, 2012 at 3:26 am

“I gave up on Time a long time ago, when they darkened Willie Horton’s skin on the cover.”

You know I know most if not all on this board don’t like Rush, but if you take a moment and look at the things you say, to me.your no better than him, saying hateful vulgar things wise up and ignore it

Wise up and ignore it? I think what you really want is for us to sit there and take it. You agree with Rush and laugh at the things he says about liberals, so what does that say about you?

The filibuster is used by GOPers in the Senate like a burning cross on the White House front lawn. Somebody needs to do something about this affront to the Constitution and to the very idea of American representative democracy.

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brian stouder said on May 19, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Alex hits the matter as squarely as it can be hit (with emphasis added)

Wise up and ignore it? I think what you really want is for us to sit there and take it. You agree with Rush and laugh at the things he says about liberals, so what does that say about you?

Here in Fort Wayne, I noticed that our own self-proclaimed “round-mound of rightwing sound” has disappeared, and then upon searching found this article:

and then, when I saw this (emphasis added), I spluttered (to use Julie’s great word!)

Effective today, WOWO radio afternoon-drive show host Pat Miller will become a political analyst for the station and host of a show at noon Saturdays. Gregg Henson, director of programming operations at WOWO and sports-talk WQHK, 1380-AM, will take over as host of the afternoon drive show from 3 to 6 p.m. weekdays on WOWO, 1190-AM and 92.3-FM, Henson said in a news release. “My show will be a more contemporary talk show: Lifestyle, big news of the day and life in Fort Wayne, … less politics and policy,” Henson said in a response to emailed questions.

And I’ll tell you here and now, whatever else Gregg Henson may or may not be, he is a flatly dishonest man (whether he’s more dishonest with himself, or willfully dishonest with the News-Sentinel is of little consequence)

I say this because driving home from work yesterday I popped over to his station for a news update, and heard him stoking up a caller with an overtly racist response to Fort Wayne’s ongoing gang-related street warfare, and with an utterly incomprehensible and irrational segue into an attack on (wait for it….) Treyvon Martin.

Fort Wayne talk radio, and rightwing radio in general, seems to have the following two speeds: DUMB, and DUMBER

I’m not ignoring Rush because I think it’s imperative that Americans uphold the FCC Charter. Those ar our airwaves that fat pile of merde is befouling, and his bile, bigotry and medacity have no place on them.

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MarkH said on May 19, 2012 at 1:18 pm

Says you, Prospero. Rush as actual leader of the republican party? Then why did actual voters kick Rick Santorum to the curb?

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alex said on May 19, 2012 at 1:52 pm

Why did actual voters have Santorum nipping Mitt’s ass in a multitude of states instead of eating his dust?

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brian stouder said on May 19, 2012 at 3:12 pm

Mark H, I see your point. RH-negative Limbaugh the Third is utterly irresponsible as a “leader” of the formal Republican Party. He doesn’t face voters, he isn’t answerable to office-holders, while elected Republican officeholders themselves frequently get handed proverbial shit-sandwiches by the ‘doctor of dementia-cracy’, and then have to take a bite, and he couldn’t possibly care less about anyone else’s contrary point of view (let alone the suckers who nod in agreement and parrot his lines, and make a point of drinking his tea, if not his Kool-Aid)

Rush gets to throw all the bombs and barbs and invective he wants, and pretend he’s a great ideological warrior as he sits on his ass in his Florida compound, while actual people all across the fruity plain get stuck with the mis-government and societal neglect (whether benign or actually hostile) that his sort of extremist garbage leads to…sorta the same way Limbaugh his-own-self acted when the chips were down and the United States was at war in southeast Asia. Where was draft-age future bomb-thrower and ideological warrior Rush then? (hint: the ‘doctor of democracy’ with ‘half his brain tied behind his back’ kept his war-loving American-Exceptionalist ass completely away from anything LIKE “serving his country”. He is an exceptionally loud charlatan and coward, even amongst America’s gallery of such fakes and frauds)

But, Joe and Mark (et al) will protest – why waste the time even talking about Rush? Because we have to grant that guy this much credit: he can draw a crowd. He innately knows how to appeal to a particular group of people, with a particular mindset, and give them what they want to hear (and repeat).

Rush Limbaugh is quantifiably (and infinitely!) more consequential than any number of other figures a person might try and point to, on the left. The Reverend Wright meme has been resurrected (so to speak), and his case clearly encapsulates the absurdity of this sort of argument.

We’re supposed to be filled with loathing and rage at this Wright fellow (“God damn America!” – even discounting the out-of-context nature of that phrase, does make one stop and look).

But show me the leftist who can turn Democratic voters’ heads for three hours a day, every day. There are several that turn my head – Rachel Maddow leaps to mind, as does Lawrence O’Donnell. And if we look at their sort of advocacy, and the fact that they have bosses who keep them within some sort of factual – not to mention CIVIL – boundaries, I’d say that people like that only under-score how uniquely powerful Limbaugh is.

Limbaugh has the sweet deal; he has all the power and NONE of the responsibility!

He can call intelligent women with whom he disagrees “sluts” and “whores” and there is no one to fire him or suspend him or even to say “gosh Rush, maybe that was a stupid thing to say”.

Nope. He can do whatever he wants, and say whatever he wants, and lots of powerful people with REAL responsibilities and accountability have, as their first response, to somehow “get right with Limbaugh”.

Oh for the days when the Republicans had to “get right with Lincoln”….who some of their super-pacs want to use as an attack line, with Obama as a “black metrosexual Lincoln” (which I think President Obama should wear as a badge of honor!)

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alex said on May 19, 2012 at 3:38 pm

Brian, if right-wingers who frequent this place think we’re no better than Rush Limbaugh, then why don’t they call into his show and tell him to quit being offensive? The day they have the balls to do that is the day they’ll have any moral authority to say that to anyone here. Until then they need to “wise up and ignore it.”

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Brandon said on May 19, 2012 at 4:42 pm

Rush’s own account of his induction into the Missouri Hall of Fame. Includes a picture of him posing with his bust.

Im just saying, why are you lowering your standings to his? Saying the vile things you do make you more like Rush. I got news for you, Rush dosn’t give a rats butt what The left thinks of him, he is laughing all the way to the bank.
Pilot Joe

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brian stouder said on May 19, 2012 at 7:57 pm

Joe, Uncle Rush likes to say that he’s only a “lovable little fuzzball”, but as we have seen, this is not true. Lovable little fuzzballs (like you and I) don’t have United State Senators calling us to publicly apologize for publicly saying something that the fuzzball disagrees with.

Like it or not, Joe, you and I both have to deal with Uncle Rush. He can big-foot primary races, and he can even big-foot the Issue of the Week in the presidential race. If he says something really incisive, and damaging to President Obama, then the Romney campaign will parrot it, and people like me will have to consider it.

And if he says something really stupid and ill-advised, then the Obama campaign will parrot it, and people like you will have to consider it.

Lovable fuzzballs talk about pretty kitties and yummy recipes, and that ain’t what your boy Rush does. The fuzzy oxycontin kid and sex tourist from the show-me state cannot be ignored by people like you and I because, like it or not, his lip-flapping is consequential (unlike his pill-popping and international drug trafficking, which apparently had no consequences at all, other than making the tub-o-lard half deaf, which is oddly poetic, but nothing like what would happen to Joe Airlines or to me, if you or I did what he did).

This is nothing new in American history. Back when our glorious and infallible Founders were running the show, people like Uncle Rush would start their own newspaper – bankrolled by the appropriate faction (almost proto-Super PACs, come to think of it) and write scathing editorials and flatly untrue stories about whoever their adversaries were.

And indeed, get on the wrong side of the wrong guy – like President Thomas Jefferson, for example – and your newspaper could be shut down and your ass could be chucked into prison….but we digress

Why do Rush’s listeners always sound like Susan Atkins’ jailhouse confessions?“Charlie don’t care what the Bug thinks. He gets more ass than Merv Griffin. He can make Kool-Aid out of dirt. I’ve seen it. They’re just mad at him because they’re pigs. He don’t care what pigs think.”

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Laura Lippman said on May 22, 2012 at 8:20 am

Late to this, but — I was one of Melinda’s bridesmaids and her mother is definitely not of the liberal persuasion and not famous. Except as Melinda’s mom.